Friday, April 09, 2010

I still think it is a travesty that some riders implicated in Operación Puerto continue to compete (ex. Piti), while others, like Jan Ullrich, saw their careers destroyed - based on evidence no different than the absolved. The greatest fault of the fight against doping in cycling is that it is clearly not a fair, uniform, unbiased effort made for the sake of reducing as much as possible the use of performance enhancing drugs in our sport. Rather, it is in part this, but it also could be seen as a persecutive campaign to enhance the careers of journalists, prosecutors, anti-doping administrators and all manner of hangers-on at the expense of individual athletes. Pre-buckshot, pre-Geoghegan Greg LeMond, where are you now?

If you're going to destroy one rider's livelihood (ex. Jörg Jaksche), you might as well destroy everyone's, because otherwise there is no way to argue that your system is transparent and just. For example, if the former road World champion Alessandro Ballan's career is now ended by an anti-doping probe, it is only fair that the career of the current World and Olympic time trial champion be ended (were he ever proven to be guilty of doping, of course). That Ullrich was denied the opportunity to compete in the 2006 Tour is a travesty matched only by Floyd Landis's testing positive during the same event.

4 comments:

Ullrich is the classic tragi-comic hero, whatever that means (but it sounded cool and poetic, right?)... How does Zabel get away with admitting to doping yet still keep his job, while fellow East German Ullrich is condemned to a life of charity car races to benefit stray dogs (http://www.janullrich.de/index.php?id=17&dat_id=16721)? What the fuck did Puerto serve in 2006 except to bloody the nose of cycling and ruin the careers of a few spectacular riders like Ullrich... I cannot tell you how generally bitter I am about how he was forced to retire by the persecution to which he was subjected. Of course he doped - he was 1) East German and 2) on Telekom - OH! He was a PROFESSIONAL CYCLIST, TOO! What the fuck is the problem with his having reinfused his own packed red cells? If Lance could do it for seven years (or was that 14?), why break Ulle's balls? Shit, now that I think of it, maybe it was Big Tex's jealousy of Ullrich's dual-hanging testicles that really ignited Puerto - Manzano was just an (eager) Patsy...

OH, BTW: I like the fact that you led with a photo of Ullrich FROM the 2006 Giro time trial that he won. (http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/road/2006/giro06/?id=results/giro0611)

Maybe it was that glue I just sniffed, but I am just as fired up as Pappillon about the end of Ullrich as we knew him. First he had to come up against the most successful doper in history - Lance Armstrong - and then he gets caught up in the most bumbling doping investigation ever - Puerto... He should have stuck to riding with an Hct no greater than 42 ( see the entire conversation about hot sauce here: http://flicklives.blogspot.com/2009/05/john-gorka-sounds-like.html ), then none of this would've happened. Fuck Lance, fuck the "Swiss Authorities", fuck the UCI for leaning on the Swiss Authorities who finally closed the Ullrich file (http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ht39yEVDAj0RX976KbIwKGY-8pnQ), fuck the IOC for even hinting that they might have stripped Jan of his medals - who would they have given them to? The 8th-placed rider? Christ... Long Live der Kaiser!

**UCI demand Ullrich investigation is reopened**

(AFP) – Mar 25, 2010

BERLIN — Ex-Tour de France winner Jan Ullrich could still face legal proceedings over the 2006 doping scandal which led to his retirement from cycling, the sport's governing body the UCI said Thursday.

A UCI spokesman has confirmed to German sports agency SID they have appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against the Swiss Olympic Committee's decision last month to halt the investigation into Ullrich's past.

In February, it looked like 2006 scandal was behind 36-year-old Ullrich, the former T-Mobile lead rider and 1997 Tour winner, when the Swiss Olympic Committee, with whom Ullrich had a licence, said no further action would be taken against him.

But the UCI have said they are not satisfied with the decision to stop the investigation and insist a decision must be made whether Ullrich is guilty or not.

The Swiss Olympic committee had decided not to pursue the investigation about Ullrich, who lived in Switzerland, because the German resigned from the Swiss cycling federation in 2006.

Ullrich was linked to the Operation Puerto scandal in 2006 after samples of his blood were found during a police raid on Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes who was at the centre of a doping ring.

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